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16

Mods / Re: [0.7a] Nexerelin v0.6.9 beta (test release 2015-11-29)

« on: December 01, 2015, 08:52:13 PM »

Don't recall what the last number is; probably transparency (or lack thereof). [255,0,0,255] should be "pure" solid red and is the default vanilla Pirates color. Increase the zeroes to add blue and green to darken it.

It's an RGBA colourspace -- the last number is "alpha", which is opacity, yep.  To darken you actually have to decrease the red -- e.g., 204,0,0 is 80% as bright as 255,0,0.  Any time a number increases, it adds more light in a given wavelength, which mixed together approaches white light.  Everyone always tried to explain everything in the primary paint colours and it just confused me until I thought of it as light adding up, which makes far more sense (although my brain still has trouble figuring out how red and green make yellow).

17

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.7a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: November 23, 2015, 09:00:34 AM »

A couple days later after having played this build some more, I realised how much I wanted to mention: Stian really outdid himself in this update, and since his "self" was pretty freaking awesome to begin with, that's scraping the ceiling of transcendence.  The sheer mass of sound effects and Alex's touches with the murkiness added to the soundscape just pull this update together as having some of the best sounds out of any modern sci-fi space game.  Almost makes me want to retract that age-old suggestion post about having a game option for no non-local sounds in space, because the sound effects really are just that good (but I still really do like that suggestion...).

Personally, I find that mandatory start of game tutorial sequences get old rather quickly. It's all well and good to have a tutorial available, but if the game's enjoyable enough for me to want to replay it several times, I really do not want to have to run through the tutorial every time I start a new character (and certainly not the same tutorial), and I'd really prefer not to have to keep around an old save file from the end of the tutorial sequence in order to skip it. The 'sink or swim' approach may not be all that friendly to new players, but if the starting conditions are reasonably fair, it's a lot more enjoyable, at least to me, when starting a new character after having already played at least one character a reasonable amount of time than having to go through the same old tutorial sequence yet again.

Mandatory tutorials tend to be awful -- 100% agreed.  We can take a page from a genre buddy here, though, and do it like Escape Velocity: Nova.  The old salt offers to teach you everything he knows about starships, and all you have to do is click Yes to have a decent tutorial.  Click No, and he bids you adieu and leaves you the hell alone.

Hmm, now I want to play EV Nova again...

Anyway, the problem with the current setup in Starfarctor is that you have a dialog-based system which specifies your starting scenarios, so it's difficult to shoehorn the player in as an amateur when the scenarios already imply a fair bit of experience.  But if there were an option that let you strike it off as, say, the son or daughter of an experienced captain who tries to teach you the trade, then Bad Things Happen(TM) and you take over the family business (piracy, military, trading, smuggling, whatever), followed by choosing how you end up by following the remaining starting scenario options.  Seems like it could work!

18

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.7a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: November 19, 2015, 11:14:37 PM »

Is it possible they were different factions or some such? They're supposed to break off pursuit once one patrol catches up with you and you agree to the scan. Just tested it and it seems to work.

One was a large Hegemony Patrol and the other was a Hegemony Fast Picket.  It knocked my Hegemony rep down to -9 (from -5; -2 each) so they had to be from the same faction. =)

I'll try to reproduce it again if it ever comes up.  I did turn to meet the first patrol head on rather than allowing them to catch up, so maybe it was based on a condition that doesn't fire when wittingly intercepting the fleet?  Both fleets were in near proximity to one another, but not close enough to aid each other in battle, if that also helps in reproducing it.  They had fit on the same screen when zoomed in by two? three? notches on the scroll wheel.


...Terrorforming, heh.

19

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.7a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: November 19, 2015, 09:37:34 PM »

Hooray, another JT post where he whinges about a new release!

...Naw, actually, I'm loving it so far. This took the atmosphere up another notch. Bam! ;-)

I did find something that strikes me as a bit odd: if I get legitimately shaken down for running with my transponder off, other fleets from the same faction will still come crawling in and also yell at me for having my transponder off (more accurately, berating me that I can't get away with just turning it back on).  I wouldn't really mind if only the pilot herself was upset, but it double-dings on the faction reputation too.  There definitely needs to be an immediate cancellation of an interception for all inspection fleets, not just the one that caught up to you, when you comply with the first inspection.

Also, since the only reason my transponder was off was because I had chosen to go dark and didn't realise it wasn't back on again, could I suggest some sort of positive feedback on the screen (even just a text label above the skillbar like "TRANSPONDER OFF")?  Currently the only feedback that you have it off is technically inverse feedback: it removes the halo that would ordinarily be around the transponder icon.  Given that running with it off is more "abnormal" than running with it on, there needs to be a positive indication that you're treading in hot water -- otherwise it could be a potential newbie scarer-offer.

20

Blog Posts / Re: Terrain

« on: May 25, 2015, 04:13:41 PM »

Heh. I noticed in the blog post you mention "what's space without nebulas", noting that it's a silly hypothesis to begin with, but then note the realism that asteroid belts are in actuality extremely sparse.  In reality, nebulas are even sparser -- the only reason we can see nebulas at all is because they're so far away.  Particle density in normal interstellar space is on the order of 5 atoms per millilitre.  In a nebula, it's believed closer to 40.  For something to be big and spectacular enough to produce the kinds of nebulas seen on Star Trek would require nebulas several times denser than planetary atmospheres.  For practical purposes space is without nebulas. =)

Just a humourous observation, not a commentary on the way things are or should be -- I really like the proposed changes for nebulas and asteroid belts, since it lets us get some Freelancer and Klingon Academy on.  Actually it's one of my more anticipated updates. ;-)

21

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: March 11, 2015, 09:36:59 PM »

Also there needs to be a limit on how much you can store in each base, its ridiculous than you can have 1000 food squirreled away on jangala when they are having a food shortage, the first thing the authorities would do is crack your vault locks during the crisis and raid the pantry, and maybe string you up for hoarding for good measure...

I agree with this to an extent.  Anyone who has a vast warehouse of food and yet doesn't sell it during a famine would certainly have their reputation be hurt -- but only if you're in the system to be able to do something about it and you didn't bother.  Deliberately withholding supply is one thing, but being halfway across the galaxy and returning home only to discover that everyone hates you because you had food that you had forgotten about on some world that suddenly got hit by a famine would be very unfun.

I could also see them raiding your stockpile, but that doesn't feel particularly "fair" in a game context: perfectly realistic (as in "unfair") in reality, but this is a game where we expect our storage areas to be secure.  Unless, of course, potentially losing any of your stockpiled supplies to any other circumstance also becomes a thing... which I wouldn't be against, so long as the mechanic was fairly hands-off and easy to circumvent, e.g., marines in the stockpile could help prevent theft, and so on.

Basically, Patrician III.

22

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: December 27, 2014, 10:13:51 PM »

We might be able to use "bin" or "box", if we want to capture the feel in four characters or less, but yeah, "magazine" is the true moniker.  Of course, maybe they actually are clips -- replete with a "clink" and a flying chunk of metal away from the ship each time a new magazine is loaded!  That would certainly be unique. =)

As for the argument that limited ammo is an artificial limitation compared to reality, it really isn't.  I'm largely talking out of my butt here since I have no actual naval experience, but this is based more or less on the "big picture" that I've gleaned from various un- to semi-reliable sources on the 'net, for whatever it's worth:

Capital ships do have massive stores of ammunition, it is true -- but only a fraction is available for combat at any time; rounds are continuously loaded according to the specifications and then sent up the munitions elevator for use by the gun crews, with the gun crews maintaining several rounds on hand -- ideally building up a reserve of a couple dozen in case injuries, damcon, etc. prevent the munitions crews from continuing the pace.  This is closest in principle to, say, the pulse laser mechanics, where it rebuilds a round every couple of seconds but can eventually drop to a sputtering pace if rounds are fired too quickly.  For large-calibre autocannons, as opposed to main guns, they often have no more than forty or fifty rounds within the weapon's magazine, but will then need to reload from stores -- by reason of being rather unforgiving of hands and other extremities while active they generally require the weapon to be brought offline for reloading.

All weapons can be reloaded within a couple of hours from stores, but until those stores can be brought up from stowage they remain inaccessible during combat.  Trying to move massive munitions while the ship is performing hard manoeuvres in rough seas has potentially disastrous consequences (not "explosive", but "squishy" as far as the munitions specialists are concerned).

23

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (In Development) Patch Notes

« on: December 23, 2014, 02:35:19 AM »

I suppose all I'm concerned with is whether all of these changes are getting rolled in on the back end, or whether we'll still have control over them on the front end.  For instance, I hope the ammunition counter hasn't been completely disabled for ballistic weapons -- i.e., if we wanted to, I hope we can go ahead and add it back in, in mod form, for those weapons we want to have ammo.  If it's actually being handed on down from high that 'no, ballistic weapons no longer have ammo no matter what', then I'll be a sad panda. =P

The flux-boost damage is at least 100% doable in mod code, through a scaled damage bonus, so that's not a major loss.

24

Suggestions / Re: General Ideas

« on: November 14, 2014, 08:28:46 PM »

2(C) was also addressed in one of the pre-release megathreads... it was based on the fact that while the dead men tell no tales, the live men responsible for the incident (i.e., your crew) probably would let it slip in one way or another, no matter how tightly you try to run your ship.  I believe Alex mentioned that it's intended to abstract a concept that otherwise would take a massive amount of programming work for a comparatively minor feature.

That said, if we can have smugglers who deal with pirates under the watchful eyes of my ship suddenly change their transponders to Neutral to get away with it before I have a chance to blow them up for collusion with the enemy, then perhaps the idea that deep space cleanses all could be evaluated different way: a guaranteed small rep hit no matter what, to abstract the word getting out, but a smaller chance of the major rep hit depending on distance from a colony and your Leadership skill -- the tighter you run your ship and the farther away from potential abstract witnesses, the lower the likelihood of getting caught with actual evidence -- leaving only the rumour mill and hushed tones.

Historical example: Reynaud de Chastillon.

25

Suggestions / Re: Fuel use

« on: November 14, 2014, 08:11:49 PM »

I especially like orost's idea of it burning CR especially -- it also ties into the concept that harassing the enemy as they try to flee causes them to lose additional CR for a slight loss in your own CR, as you're giving just enough of a pursuit to force them to throw extra books into the fire.

In the long run, being able to burn off CR to achieve higher speed is also just a form of burning additional cash, in the form of supplies, but since it has additional side effects beyond a mere financial hit it's both simple and elegant.  I suppose it boils down to "is Infernium fuel specific to hyperspace ONLY"?

The only sticking point I can think of is trying to teach the AI when it's smartest to use the feature and when it's not smart to use the feature.  There could also be several circumstances of ragequit-level annoyance where a massive fleet travelling at burn 2 suddenly jumps to and catches you at burn 4 just because you grazed a little too close in your burn 5~6 ship.  It would have a strategic element to it, of course, but part of the reasoning behind the removal of the post-combat deceleration (which I'm still not fairly happy about unless/until we get nearby ships able to reinforce...) was that it wasn't explained anywhere and could be frustrating at the entry level.

26

Suggestions / Re: Asteroid Mining

« on: November 14, 2014, 08:02:48 PM »

Ah -- I didn't read the OP initially and just assumed it was another request along similar lines as past requests.  Chalk it up to pure laziness on my part. =)

I suppose we'd need a much larger API to detect active blowings-up of asteroids in a combat scenario anyway, although it's been a while since I even bothered delving into Java long enough to see how well the API has matured... but if the combat engine is only used for combat then the rest of the game feels like a "make combat happen" engine, engineering circumstances to make things blow up, which doesn't quite sate my appetite for hands-on industry.  That's possibly overstating the fact given how much attention was given to campaign style gameplay in the 0.65 update, but at least I personally feel as though there needs to be a point to have all of those mining blasters actually installed in your weapon mounts beyond merely throwing dice and putting on wizard hats. ;-)

That all said, having finally read the OP, I do like the conversation mining suggestion as written nearly as much as the concept of active mining!

27

Mods / Re: [0.6.5a] The Mayorate v0.8.1 (updated 3/11/14)

« on: November 14, 2014, 04:41:33 PM »

When you're flying at nap-of-earth at 1 km/s in atmosphere, it's important to know where the tall buildings are if you decide to ignore the safety regs just a little. ;-)

28

Mods / Re: [0.6.5a] The Mayorate v0.8.1 (updated 3/11/14)

« on: November 14, 2014, 01:02:17 PM »

Spoiler

[close]

Had a field day with the gradient tool. This will be the market interaction image for Inir whenever I get around to making another update. And before you ask- no, I don't know what the beams are for.  

Low-intensity lasers in the green visible light spectrum to prevent collisions with tall buildings, of course!

29

Suggestions / Re: Asteroid Mining

« on: November 13, 2014, 11:38:23 PM »

I find myself wanting to mine asteroids literally all the time.  (That is literally what we call "hyperbole", for the Figurative-Nazis.  (People who are figuratively Nazis, or people who are Nazis about being figurative -- take your pick.))

Given that ore can become deflated as low as 1 credit per unit in saturated markets, I think the game is already perfectly balanced to allow active mining -- it is self-defeating to use it for too long when richer financial prospects come along.  It would be nice to implement it both actively (make asteroids asplode) and passively (make ore mines not-asplode) in the long term, as both could be enjoyable; the first when you want something that doesn't shoot back, and the second when you want no shooting at all.

30

Suggestions / Re: Signal horn

« on: November 13, 2014, 11:26:30 PM »

"And for God's sake, stay out of Galactica's firing solution!" (The most memorable moment of the series for me was sadly only a part of the pilot, but it was an extremely memorable most-memorable-moment.)

Love the idea.  If the AI could be smarter about staying clear of heavier allies' firing solutions as a matter of AI protocol that would be icing on the cake, but I'd be happy to settle for a manually-triggered gentleman's warning.